When ants invade your home, it's time to battle. You don't have to use ant baits with…
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One of the fun benefits of living in a first floor apartment in Los Angeles is that every year, around August or September, ants like to come up through the sink. It doesn't really matter if you leave a bag of sugar out on the counter or not—they'll still come. It's generally a small problem, but any number of ants crawling up through your sink isn't ideal. Keeping them away is as simple as putting some spice near the entry point for a day or two, regularly washing it down the sink (if that's your source of the problem), and keeping an occasional eye out to make sure they don't come back.

When I did my initial research I found out about the mint extract and bay leaves, but I didn't have either of those things. I didn't want to waste any time, so I poured some mint-flavored Listerine around the drain in the interim and dug through the pantry to find any pungent spices I already had. After searching each of them along with the words "get rid of ants" I found that, for the most part, someone has used the spices I had to ward them off. Although the Listerine seemed to be working, I doubled-down and added a sprinkling of cardamom (I like the smell and I never use it in cooking). The result? No more ants. If you have a minor ant problem and need to stop it, don't feel like you need to go out and buy something. See if any spices or extracts you already own will work with a quick web search. That worked for me, and I was able to use a spice that's been sitting around doing nothing.